We Need to Talk About Omi, Chapter One

[lonewolfprincess]

“There is no old Omi, you dope…!”

“Omi swore his loyalty to me…”

“Then you won’t be there to save me from the dark side…”

“Oh yeah, you’ve motivated me right outta here…! Golden Tiger Claws…!”

“Omi…! Use the Sands of Time…! Make sure this never happens…! Go…!”

Omi’s eyes squeezed tighter before they flew open. It took a second too long to realize he was screaming before he stopped himself, slapping a hand over his mouth to breathe heavily through his nose.

A few more deep breaths, and he finally looked around his cubicle, still lying down on his mat. Still deep night… It didn’t sound like any of the others were awakened by the shameful outburst, which… good. He didn’t need questions. Not from his old friends, not from his new ones.

After the waves of fear and shame subsided, frustration rose to the surface. He’d been doing fine the last few months, he thought. He worked hard at being a better, humbler teammate and at aiding Raimundo to train the new Dragons. He felt himself relax and enjoy life more lately, even felt his confidence rise a little, although he was wary of ever reaching those dangerous summits from before. What wouldn’t his mind let him attain peace?!

A few more deep breaths… ‘Patience in a moment of anger prevents a hundred days of sorrow,’ so Master Fung would probably say.

“I’ll just… train a little,” he whispered in the dark, flipping away the blanket to rise. “Perhaps that will make me tired enough to fall back asleep.”



Omi squinted through bloodshot eyes as he stared out into the courtyard.

Training to wear himself out had been a burst. (Or was it a bust…? A break…? It was too early for idioms, clearly.) So had meditating. And reading. And just lying down and hoping to fall asleep naturally. Eventually, it became too light outside to keep sleeping, and neither the delicious congee with minced ginger, mushrooms, and crispy tofu squares nor the Iron Goddess tea served with it made a dent in his fatigue. He knew he was supposed to be watching Tori and Mia as they sparred, but eventually the flow of Mia’s aggressive strikes and kicks and Tori’s graceful spins and blocks and the others’ called-out instructions began to blur, smooth, and his eyes were so, so heavy—

“Omi?” Raimundo called out gently.

“EEYA!” Omi backflipped a few yards away into a leopard stance… and then realized everyone was staring at him. He sheepishly rubbed the back of his head. “Ahaha, an… excellent demonstration on the element of surprise, Leader?”

Raimundo rose an eyebrow. “I was calling you for a few seconds.”

“… So quietly I could not hear you! An excellent skill to master!”

Everyone gave him looks with varying blends of exasperation and concern.

“Okay, guessing that’s gonna be a ‘no’ on feedback from Omi…” Raimundo rested a hand on the little monk’s shoulder. “You sure you’re okay, bud?”

Omi gently- okay maybe not as gently as he meant- pushed the Shoku Warrior’s hand away, waving away the concern as if it were a fly.

“I am fine, truly. I… merely did not rise from the right side of the mat this morning, clearly.”

“‘Woke up on the wrong side of the bed?’” Mia ventured.

“Same difference,” Omi responded, trying (and mostly succeeding, he hoped) to keep his voice flat and dry instead of snapping. He knew they were all just trying to help. “In any case, I apologize for distracting from the lesson.”

Tori smiled sweetly, while Mia gave a calm shrug.

“No worries, Omi,” Tori said lightly. “Maybe a meditation session might help us recenter? What do you think, Teach?”

Raimundo nodded, having long-since accepted his fate at being called that.

“Yeah, not a bad idea.”



The six of them staked out spots in the meditation garden, Omi kneeling beside the stream to better connect to his element. It had taken quite a bit of work- the Heylin Comet’s timing couldn’t have been worse- but no one could deny that the results were beautiful and soothing, especially as the new foliage grew over the last year, blending the seams of their manmade efforts.

He tried to not let his mind wander to learning that Raimundo had told the truth about needing the temporarily cursed Shen Gong Wu to save Tubarão from a volcano, how harsh he and the others had been on him—

Omi shook his head, determined to keep his eyes shut. The past was in the past, or… in the future or the next present over, in some cases, but anyway! He needed to ignore it, let go. Breathe, focus, think of anything but the dozens of mistakes that haunted his sleep, wouldn’t leave his memory during the day…

Under the shade of the top level of the open-framed pagoda, Mia cracked one eye open. Static meditation wasn’t her strong suit; her mind was usually too busy even in a good mood, it needed movement or stimulation in order to truly focus. She decided to take in the beauty of the garden for a bit, see if that could get her back on track. The bright flowers Tori sat near with a serene smile, the standing stone Clay knelt on, perfectly balanced with steady breaths, Omi kneeling near the stream with squeezed-shut eyes as the water began to roil fast—what?!

“Omi!” Mia took a running start off the platform, forcing her legs to push off the edge as hard as possible to leap through the air. “Crescent Fang!” The dagger at her hip glowed, the light covering her whole body as she transformed into a wiry wolf mid-leap.

Omi’s eyes flew open, and he yelped as the wolf landed on his bank, snapped the collar of his tunic in her jaws, and raced a few yards away from the stream, all in one swift movement.

Everyone’s eyes flew open as they rushed to their feet, and they were puzzled to see a lupine Mia standing between Omi and the gently flowing waters of the stream, hackles raised and snarling with bared teeth. Everyone braced their stances and pulled out Shen Gong Wu.

“What’s going on?” Raimundo asked.

Mia’s still-gray eyes stayed focused on the stream for long, growling seconds… before she gave a short bark to call off the Fang’s magic, still crouched and tense as she turned human, Fang drawn in her hand.

“The water… it was bubbling, like it was boiling, or-or something was about to surface, I don’t know…!”

Everyone gasped in alarm. Kimiko and Tori guardedly stepped towards the stream, Kimiko holding out a hand to tap into her Fire and touch the water while Tori closed her eyes to Look.

The Dragon of Fire rose and shook her head. “Water’s still cold, and I don’t sense any body heat.”

Tori shrugged as she opened her eyes. “I don’t see anything other…” Oh… She gave Mia a quick look, and then lightened her voice as she addressed Raimundo. “I mean… I don’t see anything out of the ordinary.”

He raised an eyebrow at the Sun Dragon… before relenting with a nod.

“Maybe we should take the rest of the day off. Today’s been weird.”

“What?” Omi finally rose to his feet, fully alert after that startle. “But we barely got started, I—”

“Omi,” Tori said, gently but with an undercurrent of firmness. “Breaks are important. They let you refresh your mind and heal your body so you grow stronger, right?”

Mia nodded at him as she finally rose from her protective crouch, sheathing her dagger.

Omi sighed, after a few stubborn seconds. “If our leader insists…”

Raimundo frowned at that… Omi leaning into the deference for his new leader title usually meant a mood plunge of some kind, he knew that by now. He just wished he knew what caused it…

“Then yeah… Wudais, you guys can train solo or whatever until lunch. Girls…” he nodded to the Sun and Moon Dragons, then towards the temple, “come with me, still got one more lesson in mind.”



Mia kept glancing at the stream and Omi over her shoulder as the three of them walked away. Once they were far enough out of earshot, she growled in frustration, roughly running a hand through her bangs.

“I swear, the water was acting weird, Raimundo, I saw it—”

Tori held up a hand, pausing her sister’s speech before patting her shoulder.

“You did.” She turned to their teacher, expression grave. “The stream had traces of Omi’s magic clinging to it.”

Raimundo nodded. He figured that might’ve been it, especially with how quickly Tori covered it up.

“Wait so… Omi was doing that on purpose, or…?” Well… now Mia felt embarrassed, for jumping the gun, and for probably putting Omi on the spot.

“No, more like…” Tori’s lips pinched together, before she glanced at the Crescent Fang, “a Water Dragon version of a Teething? His aura’s looked stormy all day too.”

Oh. Mia glanced down at her dagger as well. “Teething” was the phrase Tori recently coined for when the Crescent Fang responded to her anxiety, started transforming her body into a werewolf form against her will. It helped a little, thinking of the Shen Gong Wu as a fussy toddler that needed to be soothed instead of a wild force of magic needing to be tightly controlled, but… comparing it to what just happened to Omi? Still sat uneasy in her stomach, even as everything clicked.

“Yeah, that… lines up.” Maybe a Nightmare last night then… She knew the symptoms well enough herself, the grogginess, the frayed nerves. She took a moment before finding the words, or… some words at least… “… You don’t have to explain, but… do you know why…?”

Raimundo shook his head, unable to help the tiny, dark laugh that escaped. His own expression clouded.

“Trust me, we’ve all tried.” He sighed, unable to fully shove down the feelings of failure as a friend or a leader. “We’re pretty sure it’s got something to do with that last Wudai quest. When I got promoted that day, and during the battle, he seemed fine, but…”

But afterwards… that night, Raimundo could’ve sworn he woke up to a scream, coming from the left of his room, too high to be from Clay, but… silence afterwards, and his deeply tired body drifted back to sleep too quickly. And in the morning, those walls that never existed before were firmly set.

Tori reached out and rested her hand on his shoulder.

“Hey, it’s not your fault. I’ve seen how much you try to support each other. Sometimes that’s… all you can do, even if it sucks that you can’t do more.”

Mia nodded ruefully as Tori threw an arm around her too.

“There could be a lot of reasons why he’s not opening up either. Doubt it’s because you’re not close enough.” Wait… Could that be…? “Maybe it’s… because you’re too close?”

Raimundo’s face scrunched in confusion. “Too close?”

“Yeah like…” Mia forced herself to stop, plan her words, lacing her fingers together as she finally spoke. “Sometimes… you can care about someone so much that you’re worried that… admitting something big might change that? About who you are, or something you’ve done?”

Ah. Tori nodded in agreement; she knew how deeply rooted that particular fear rested in her sister, even with persistent culling.

Raimundo grimaced… Of course the thought was nonsense- after everything they’ve been through, there was nothing that’d drive them apart, he was sure- but he knew once Omi got an idea in his head, it was hard to get it out.

“So… what we’ve gotta do is find someone Omi’s close enough to so he’ll wanna spill, but not so close that he’s worried about that stuff?”

The girls nodded.

“Either that or a therapist,” Tori offered.

Mia scoffed. “Mine’s really good, but I could barely get her to wrap her head around ‘I think I can talk to animals.’ Not sure she’d be able to handle full-on mystical quests and timelines getting smashed and glued back together.”

Raimundo sighed… It was hard, because they didn’t run into many other people in their line of work. Dojo knew something, but he’d clearly sworn secrecy, and Raimundo wasn’t ready to violate that trust yet. Master Fung wasn’t making much more progress, despite his own efforts. Jack and Chase were… really freaking weird in terms of classifying their relationships, and Omi would never purposefully admit to a weakness they could use. Did that leave anyone else—

Wait… Maybe…

He grinned at them both. “Girls, you’re geniuses!”

Tori grinned and clasped her hands. “Oooh, what do you have in mind?”

Raimundo just grinned some more. “You’ll see, tomorrow at least.”

The girls all nodded, though… Mia hesitated.

“Just… be patient, okay? Pressing too hard might make him lock it up tighter.”

Raimundo nodded. “Yeah, for sure.” Then his smile turned more mischievous. “Now, who’s up for a two-on-one spar?”

Mia grinned fiercely at the challenge. Tori was a little more nervous at the prospect, but not nearly as much as she would’ve been at the start of their training. And it helped to have her sister backing her up.

None of them noticed the blackbird who’d been perched quietly in the nearby bird bath, and took off once they walked away…



Omi yawned as he sat up from his mat. Thankfully last night’s rest was much more peaceful; and it helped that the others had given him some space after that stressful morning. He’d have to apologize and thank them properly later. As he pulled back the curtain, though… he sensed something was off. It seemed quieter than usual. Maybe Raimundo had slept in (again).

“Raimundo?” He called out, approaching the Wind Dragon’s cubicle. Silence… He rolled his eyes, a wry smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “O mighty leader, it is far past time to rise and sparkle…”

He pushed back the curtain, prepared to pull out the tiny gong if necessary, but… no Raimundo to be seen, still curled up on the mat or otherwise.

“Huh?”

Well, then… where could he be? A hunch… and Omi peaked into all the other rooms instead. All empty.

Omi gasped! Oh no, did he sleep in instead?!

Panicked, Omi dashed towards the kitchens, where he found Kimiko, Clay, Tori, and Mia all busy preparing breakfast.

Everyone’s heads turned to the little monk, one hand propped against the doorframe as he bowed, breathless from the sprint as he spoke.

“I am most ashamed of my tardiness, my friends!”

“You’re fine,” Mia spoke up plainly from where she was chopping eggplants and squash and tomatoes, one earbud in her ear while the other faintly streamed a metal guitar solo.

“What? But I—”

She set the knife down to turn to look at him, arms folded.

“This isn’t a professional kitchen, and we have plenty of hands on deck. You showed up to help, therefore you’re fine.”

Omi blinked, not sure what to make of this rough mercy.

Tori just grinned brightly from where she was beating eggs. “Besides, Raimundo’s not here yet, so no way you’re late!”

That definitely got his attention. “Raimundo is missing?”

“Well, not totally missing?” Tori shrugged. “He left a note saying he’d be back in the morning. Didn’t say where or exactly when then. And no Dojo, so figure they went off together.”

Omi still frowned. It wasn’t like Raimundo to wander off— … well okay, it wasn’t like him anymore, or at least so he hoped.

“Should we not look for him? If he was alone, and an enemy ambushed him—”

Clay just… picked up the fretting monk and set him near one of the kitchen counters.

“Easy, partner. Raimundo’s the Shoku Warrior now, and our leader. I’m sure whatever he had in mind, it ain’t that dangerous or he’d let us know, or rope us into it.”

Omi sighed. “I suppose…” He took in the station, stacked with whole oranges, a hand squeezer, and an empty pitcher. With a nod, he began literally hand-chopping the fruits before juicing them. “What are we making today?”

“Ooh!” Tori’s eyes lit up as she explained; clearly this was her idea. “I was thinking of doing a spin on the tomato egg stir-fry with ratatouille ingredients! Tomatoes, eggplants, squash and zucchini, some fresh basil. We’re doing a mint basil blend for the tea too, and Mia is finally letting us cut into the sourdough loaf for toast~!”

Mia smiled as she lifted the large glass cloche over the sourdough boule she made two days ago, a sticky note attached to the glass reading “DO NOT TOUCH BEFORE SATURDAY ON PAIN OF DUEL!” A second note underneath the first one added “(That includes you, Tex!)”

“Yo, that sounds dope!” a voice called out. “Hope y’all have room for one more; Rai here nabbed me right before lunch.”

Omi’s head swiveled to the doorway. Sure enough, Raimundo was there leaning against the doorframe, a warm smirk on his face as Dojo rested on his shoulder. And stepping into the kitchen… a grinning young man in a blue and red basketball jersey and red sweatpants, sneakers left outside so only white socks covered his feet.

“Jermaine!”

The little monk all but teleported over to his old friend! He laughed as he reached up a hand for a high-five to begin their special handshake—wait…

Omi glanced up at Jermaine… and up… and up. And stared a long while.

“… When did you get so tall?!”

Jermaine just chuckled. It was true; the last time he hung out with the Xiaolin Warriors, he’d been somewhere between Kimiko and Raimundo in height. Now he could easily look Raimundo in the eye, could nearly do the same with Clay.

“What can I say, finally hit my growth spurt.” Being a couple of years older than his homey probably helped. Thankfully, Omi seemed to recover quickly when Jermaine high-fived him back, the two of them then clasping, back-slapping, and fist-bumping. “Hear you’ve been doing some growing of your own, man. Up to Wudai Warrior and helping Rai train the newbies?”

Raimundo had hinted at other things as well… but even if the Wind Dragon hadn’t been hush-hush, Jermaine would rather hear things from Omi first.

At least Omi nodded with a warm, real smile, that was a good sign.

“Yes!” He took Jermaine’s wrist to lead him further into the kitchen. “This is Tori; she is the Xiaolin Dragon of the Sun!”

Tori set down the eggs and held out a hand for him to shake. “Hey there!”

Jermaine smiled brightly as he clasped her hand. “What’s up, my sister!”

Tori grinned back as she led him over to Mia’s station.

“And this is my sister, Mia!”

Mia nodded calmly as she held out her hand. “Xiaolin Dragon of the Moon. Nice to meet you.”

“Same, girl, same!”

“Jermaine is our friend from New York City!” Omi piped up, still at Jermaine’s side. “He is one of the most talented warriors I have ever met! He even rose to the rank of Wudai Warrior within a year of training!”

The girls blinked at each other… then turned awed, beseeching eyes to the prodigy.

“That is so cool~!” “How long did it take you to reach Apprentice?!” “Can you give us tips?!” “Yeah, we really really really want to try out infusing Wu with our elements!”

Raimundo chuckled as he finally piped up.

“Girls, girls, give him some air. And don’t you have breakfast to finish first?”

Tori pouted. “Okay, fine…”

Mia, on the other hand, rolled her eyes and went back to work, but not before shooting Jermaine a “this isn’t over!” look, which just made him laugh.

“Seriously, Omi dawg,” he said, turning his attention back to Omi, “been a while since I last heard from you. What’ve y’all been up to?”



It’d taken the rest of cooking and eating breakfast for Omi to lay out everything since they last saw each other, fast and excited and gesturing wildly. Raimundo, Kimiko, Clay, and Dojo all piped in with extra details here and there while the Sun and Moon Dragons mostly stayed quiet. Jermaine kept a steady flow of commentary and questions as Omi described the trip to Atlantis to destroy the giant, world-eating spiders, Chase’s gambit to secure Omi’s loyalty- “clown’s lucky I wasn’t there and it wasn’t a basketball game…” he’d seethed after hearing of the Xiaolin Soccer game, now having another reason to loathe his former “master”- all of their Wudai quests and their outcomes, Hannibal Bean’s escape and his schemes to destroy the monks from within.

“So that is when I chose my quest: to turn Chase Young to the side of good!” Omi declared as he finished stretching, ready to start training with a healthy dose of sparring, twirling the dormant Shimo Staff in his fingers.

“Whaaat?!” Jermaine gasped, nearly dropping his own quarterstaff. He recovered neatly enough, though, shaking his head with a baffled but impressed scoff. “You never do anything small, do you, homey? So, how’d that go down?”

Oh. Omi… had been so caught up in the rush of seeing his friend that he hadn’t realized they’d reached this part of the story.

“I… what?”

“How’d it go down? Trying to bring one of the biggest names on the Heylin team to the light side?”

“I…” Omi’s face blanched, eyes unfocused as he bowed to start their spar. “It is a long story.”

“Omi dawg, you just blabbed for two hours straight.” As Jermaine rose from his own bow, he cocked an eyebrow and smirked. “You telling me you’re running out of steam now?”

He’d hoped the light poke to Omi’s ego would goad him into spilling, but… instead the little monk hesitated, shrunk into himself in a way that just looked wrong.

Instead of lunging forward to attack, Jermaine set down his staff and walked forward.

“Hey, man, it’s cool, for real. What happens on a quest stays on a quest, I guess.”

Omi stared hard at the ground… then sighed.

“It is not that, Jermaine, truly.” At Jermaine’s quiet, patient eyebrow, he looked towards the quintet of other monks, engrossed in their own sparring session. “It is that… I messed up, during my quest.”

Jermaine just gave a good-natured scoff. “Worse than getting played into having your good chi bottled like cheap soda so you’d think you owed Chase jack squat and put the whole world under his scaly thumb? C’mon, man.”

“… Yes.”

Jermaine almost didn’t catch it, even standing right in front of him. He reached a hand down to Omi’s shoulder.

“Omi… what happened?”

For two whole seconds, Omi was at war with himself. Jermaine might understand, but… he might not. Their friendship had already come apart at the seams once before, over something much smaller. Worse, that would chance the others finding out. What should he—

“Shen Gong Wu alert!” Dojo squawked, loud enough to fill the whole courtyard.

Omi and Jermaine raced over to the rest of the Dragons. Dojo scratched his neck as he pulled out the Scroll.

“It’s the Which-Switch!” The silhouette showed what looked like a baton with two knobs on each end. “Whoever possesses it can swap almost any two objects it points at!”

“Almost any?” Raimundo asked.

“Yeah…” Dojo admitted, rubbing the back of his neck out of mixed parts sheepishness and hives. “There are some rules about distance, size, mass… honestly, it’s kind of a finicky Wu. I think Dashi just made it so Wuya would get frustrated…”

“Be that as it may,” Omi piped up, “we cannot let the forces of evil get their hands on it!"

Jermaine nodded to the others. “Count me in!”



Tori squeed as she and the other monks trekked through the dense jungles of Borneo, glad she’d kept her hair bound in the high puff from training.

“Eeee I can’t believe we’re in a real rainforest!”

Mia couldn’t help a chuckle as she tied the denim jacket over her Linkin Park shirt around her waist.

“Yeah, this place is amazing.” She pitched her voice only as much as she needed to, not wanting to scare anything off. There could be tigers, Sumatran rhinos, orangutans, elephants, pangolins, clouded leopards... she wanted to see if she could hear any, maybe talk with them if they wanted. “Keep your eyes peeled for more than Shen Gong Wu, guys. I’ll keep my ears open.”

“Oh yeah, the Dragon’s Tongue thing, right?” Jermaine asked, which Mia nodded at. He’d been filled in on the girls’ recruitment and their powers on the dragon ride over. Unfortunately, he couldn’t get a single word out of Omi regarding their aborted conversation in the courtyard.

Dojo, meanwhile, was a bit busy scratching all over his scaly little body as Clay held him like a dowsing rod, the cowboy doing his best not to lose his breakfast.

“We’re getting close…!”

Tori took the opportunity to close her eyes, stopping and bracing herself against a tree. All the swirling auras of her friends- she was a bit surprised that Jermaine only had a creative star in his heart, given how skilled he was as a Xiaolin Warrior- before spotting the pillar of Shen Gong Wu light.

“Somewhere over there!”

She pointed in the general direction, and immediately Omi’s eyes flew to a baton wedged in the branch of a great banyon tree. The length boasted red and blue barber stripes, one end’s pommel capped in gold while the other one shone silver.

“The Which-Switch!”

Just as the horde of teenagers prepared to descend on the Shen Gong Wu, crunchy industrial hip-hop filled the air, as did the drone of… only three Jackbots.

“Jack Spicer!” Omi pointed dramatically at the villain flying in.

Jermaine groaned. “Poser can’t put on some good beats for his intro?”

Jack shook a fist from his heli-pack. “Don’t diss my remixing skills! My beats are off the hook!”

“More like off the rocker…” Raimundo quipped, to everyone’s snickers.

Mia smirked even more as she took in the robots. “Army’s looking a little small, Baby Spice. What’s the matter, did they unionize and walk out?”

Jack growled. “Don’t play innocent! I know one of you guys put me in the hole for twenty grand, and now it’s time I make you pay! Jackbots, attack!”

The Jackbots… hesitated. Sure, they had a directive, but… there were seven humans. And only three of them. … After a few nanoseconds calculating and communicating odds to each other, the trio of Jackbots flew away into the wilderness, off to find a purpose in programming anywhere but here.

“What?!” Jack cried out, to everyone’s hysterical laughter.

Wuya groaned. “This is why you need to develop your physical skills as well! Now get the Which-Switch!”

Jack growled as he flew over, but as his hand landed on the baton… another hand landed on his. Brown gloves, leading to bronze bracers.

“As much as I hate to admit it,” Chase Young drawled with a smirk, “the little hag might have a point, Spicer.”

Everyone gasped. “Chase Young!”

It’d been months since anyone had seen or heard from the master of evil, and he’d certainly have no interest in a Shen Gong Wu like the Which-Switch.

“What are you doing here, Chase Young?!” Omi asked for them all, as he and the others stepped into defensive stances.

“Who knows,” Chase merely said, serene as ever. “Perhaps I wanted to stretch my legs and happened upon you all. Perhaps I have a plan in mind for this particular Shen Gong Wu.” He turned a smirk to the monks, cold and oily. “Perhaps I just wanted to see how my former students were doing…”

A chill ran up Omi’s spine, even as he tried to hide it by tensing his stance and deepening his scowl. In contrast, spikes of hot rage shot through everyone else’s blood.

“Step off, clown,” Jermaine said with a dramatic point. “You ain’t my teacher anymore, and you were never Omi’s.”

“Is that what he told you?” Chase let his smirk grow amused, standing and forgetting about the insect Spicer for the time being. “He did swear his loyalty to me, even if he did manage to win his freedom back. And you truly were an excellent pupil, Jermaine. Either of you would’ve made even greater warriors if you’d stayed with me.”

Mia growled deeply as she stepped in front of them both, Crescent Fang drawn.

“Shut up! We’ve heard the stories now! You go on and on about how evil and loyalty need to be sworn freely, but you knew Omi would never swear his loyalty to you! That’s why you had to cheat and rip out half his soul first!” She scowled at him as she stepped to the side, away from the crowd. “You’re the weak one, Chase, not him! He’s not the one stupid enough to trade his soul for a bowl of cursed soup just because a talking bean told him to!”

Everyone gasped.

One second, Chase Young stood there, frozen, glaring…

The next, a blur of olive green and black slammed the Moon Dragon into the trunk of a moss-covered tree yards away, claw-sprouting hands scrambling against the reptile claws grabbing the collar of her shirt.

Chase snarled. “Bold words, child.” His eyes narrowed even further. “I do hate to disappoint you, but you are far from the first to say them, and you will not be the last.” He lifted one set of talons away from her collar, but only to raise it in the air, poised to strike. “Anything else you’d like to say?”

Mia struggled in his grasp, gaze still defiant even as the Fang’s power coursed from her hands up her arms, teeth sharpening.

Adrenaline flooded Omi’s limbs like lightning…

“Wudai Neptune, Water!”

Normally, Omi’s attacks formed graceful, surging helices. This? This was a solid wall of water, slamming the greatest warrior of evil into a far-off tree and pinning him there, reptile claws tearing the collar of Mia’s shirt as they lost their hold. As everyone swarmed around the Moon Dragon to protect her from further attacks, Omi’s grip on the wall of roiling water did not relent, even squeezing the cursed form tighter before he locked the water molecules into place, straining himself to form ice against the oppressive heat and humidity of the jungle.

Chase looked around the trap… then chuckled.

“My my… ruthless today, aren’t we?”

Omi nearly snarled back. “I will not let you harm any of my friends, Chase Young! Now prepare for a most—”

“Striking an immobilized opponent, Omi? How unlike you.” Chase nodded in the direction of the tree the Which-Switch had been found in. “And in any case, you’re distracted. The hag and the insect are making off with the Shen Gong Wu.”

“What?!”

Everyone turned back to the Which-Switch’s tree… which was empty now. And saw a black and red blur fading into the treeline, cackling beside a pale purple dot. They looked back to the ice prison—that’d… already shattered, Chase Young nowhere to be seen.

Omi seethed even as he turned around, the others still huddled around Mia. Tori hugged her sister tightly while Clay rested a hand on her shoulder.

Raimundo sighed deeply, clutching his chest. “You gotta stop doing that, girl. Nearly gave me a heart attack.”

Mia barely had time to let out a huff of a rattled laugh—

“Yes, Mia, are you out of your rocker?!” Omi yelled. “We lost the Shen Gong Wu and both of our enemies! You could have been—” his mouth froze on the words, images of the banished future flashing, but he stamped them down, drowned them in rage. “What were you thinking?!”

The others took breaths, prepared to tell him to calm down—

“‘Get his attention instead,’” she answered stonily. At his puzzled “what?” she continued, looking away. “That’s what I was thinking: ‘get his attention off them.’” She roughly ran a hand through her bangs. “The way he was talking to you two ticked me off. He hates when I call him a soul-shilling idiot, so…”

Everyone blinked. She’d done that on purpose?

Jermain whistled. “Dang, girl…”

Omi felt a twinge of awe too… but it was overpowered by the flood of shame, worry.

“That… that is most ridiculous! We are both Wudai Warriors, and you are still In-Training! We do not need or desire your protection! If anything, you should rely on us for protection! Your foolishness cost us the Shen Gong Wu and nearly cost you—”

“Omi.” Raimundo stepped up to the little monk, arms crossed and voice firm. “Back off.”

“No,” Mia’s quiet voice cut through the argument. Her gaze was downcast, stoic, opaque. “He’s right. Not anything I’m not already telling myself.”

… Oh. Guilt landed heavily in Omi’s stomach, congealed.

Before he could speak up, Mia started to walk away, hands in her pockets, gaze still unfocused.

“Let’s just go already.”